Shadow of the Fates
by Giskey113
Summary: Hunting down monsters is the only life he has ever known. This is all about to change.
1. Chapter 1

The man in the hood looked over the side of the roof, observing the street below, and the saw his target walking, or limping into an abandoned building on the opposite side of the street, dragging a small girl in by her hair.

The hooded man sighed, this wasn't the first monster nest he had tackled this week in New York, and it certainly wouldn't be the last, they were getting more and more frequent, whether this was from the monsters reforming quicker, or them just converging on New York, he didn't know and didn't really care.

He sighed again, judging my the amount of activity from the abandoned building, there were going to be a lot of monsters inside, it was going to be a long night. He stood from his crouched position, and span his torso from side to side, releasing a groan as he heard the crack from multiple bones clicking in his back.

With a small leap, he jumped onto the low wall surround the top of the wall, with the wind whistling around him, he took in a deep breath and gave the building opposite one last look. With the wind rustling the hood covering his head, he couldn't help but be glad that the whole suit he was wearing was enchanted, he was still unsure by who, but it gave him an ultimately terrifying appearance.

His whole suit was black, made of some sort of leather-like material, military style boots protected his feet and went up to the middle of his shins, they had been slightly modified, so that they were lighter on his feet and he could run and jump over obstacles with ease. His pants were again made of the leather-like material, they weren't figure hugging, but were tight enough to not get caught on anything, attached to the right leg of his pants was a holster of sorts, with five celestial bronze throwing knives, so that they were easily accessible. Finally the jacket, also pitch black, so that he all but became any shadow he was stood in, it had a classic middle zip, but again a holster was located with throwing knives on his left forearm.

His hood was made as a sort of canvas material, also pitch black, it covered the tops of his shoulders, and combined with his gloves, it made no excess skin visible, the only part of his body uncovered was his face, but thanks to the enchantment, there was a permanent shadow covering the majority of it, so even in pure sunlight, his face couldn't be seen unless he wanted it to be.

His weapons were as black as the night as well, from the quiver of arrows that clung tightly to his body, the metal bow in his hand or the knives that were sheathed snugly to his quiver, and easily within reach.

The man grinned to himself, the suit had saved him on more than one occasion, mortal police had tried to shoot him once, but the suit made him impervious to mortal weaponry, although getting shot still hurt like hell.

After taking this moment to admire the workmanship put into his clothing, he wished he could meet who made it, and thank them, alas the Fates had decided that information wasn't necessary for him to know.

He turned his attention back to the abandoned building, there were Demigod children trapped inside, the purpose for holding them was as yet, still unclear, but he had the horrible suspicion that they were dinner.

With one last glance around to make sure he wasn't being viewed, he let his body tilt forward, and fell facedown towards the pavement far below.

Once he judged that he had fallen far enough, he quickly nocked an arrow and fired it directly at the building he was aiming for, the arrow, as soon as it left the bow, stretched a steel cable directly from the hand of the bow, to where the arrow landed, planted deep with the masonry of the abandoned building.

He dropped to the ground, with less sound than a whisper of wind, and the cable snapped from the handle, and retracted into the arrow far above silently. He grimaced, he did like to try and retrieve arrows so as not to waste them, but there was no way to get that one down.

Slowly stalking towards the entrance of the building, he slipped through the entrance without a sound, and found himself confronted by a long corridor, with stairs at the far end, leading up. Quietly casting his senses out, listening intently, sensing nothing on the first floor, he tried to sense if there was anything on the floors above. That was when he heard the muffled scream of a child.

All it took was that small sound for him to directly pinpoint the child at the northwest corner of the third floor. Not hesitating, the man in the hood flung himself as fast as he could down the corridor to the stairs. Leaping up them as fast as he could, he kept an eye out for tripwires, he had been caught out once before, and had the scars to prove it.

Making it to the landing on the second floor, he hastily cast his senses out again, however what he had originally predicted seemed to be the case, all of the monsters seemed to be located higher in the building.

Making it to the third floor, he quickly made his way to where he had heard the child, pausing only when he heard a door open up ahead, he quickly folded his frame into a doorway, and became one with the shadows, and all but invisible.

The Hellhound came out of the door sniffing the air, and heading towards the room where the hooded man believed the girl to be. When the Hellhound was completely out of the door, and slowly making its way up the corridor, the man in the hood, pulled an arrow from his quiver, and shot the Hellhound through the throat in less than a second, so it wouldn't make any sound, and alert any others to his presence in the building.

The only sound that was made when the Hellhound dissolved into golden dust was the thump of the arrow, as it passed cleanly through the monster, and imbedded itself in the skirting board a few feet in front of the pile of gold dust.

Satisfied that he hadn't been detected, the man in the hood, quickly moved up the hallway to the door that the Hellhound had appeared from, slowly peeking around the corner, he let out a muffled curse. In the room was at least twenty Hellhounds of various sizes spread out on different pieces of dilapidated furniture, on moth eaten sofas, even spread on the rotting tables and kitchen surfaces.

Making a strategic decision, he pulled four arrows out of his quiver, these arrows were then shot in different positions around the room to cause maximum effect when detonated. These arrows were certainly one of his pride and joys, located a few inches above the arrowhead, part of the shaft was a vial of greek fire, which once detonated caused a decent explosion, and caused anything around it to be engulfed in the vicious green flames.

Pleased with his work, again the arrows had made next to no sound, small thumps when the arrowheads connected with wooden support beams, and the mangy carpet. The man in the hood started to make his way towards his target once again, this time, he managed to make it to the door he believed his quarry to be behind with no further interruptions.

Once directly in front of the door, he regretted not thinking of a plan beforehand, not that he ever did. Casting his senses out for hopefully the last time of the night, he felt the presence of at least one powerful monster in the room he was about to enter, and at least six other entities.

Keeping the bow in his left hand, he slowly reached forward with his right hand to grasp the door knob, and twisted it, glad when it rotated silently. Once there was a crack in the doorway large enough for a rough view inside half of the room, putting an eye to the door, he quietly observed the figures inside.

Quite clearly there were at least two Empousa, a Dracanae, one of the largest Hellhounds the man had ever seen and what had to be much to his surprise a Gorgon. Thankfully the figures in the room had their backs to him, and he was able to slip inside and become one with the shadows in the corner of the room.

He noticed that the small girl sat cowering in the corner opposite to him, legs brought up to her chest, and crying into her knee's, with the Dracanae prodding her with a spear, this caused the man in the hood to almost snarl in anger.

"He will come, she is family after all" the Gorgon said with a sadistic smile and a typical bad guy laugh.

"What do we do about her?" one of the Empousa said pointing at the small girl whilst licking her lips.

"Nothing, we need her alive to draw the 'Hero of Olympus'" the Gorgon replied snarling slightly at the title. This caused the hooded man to frown slightly, 'Hero of Olympus' surely nobody actually held that title, and if they did, these monsters were just begging for trouble.

Slowly, he turned his bow back into it's concealed form, that of a rather chunky metal bracelet, and slid the three throwing knives out of their holster on his left arm.

With the monsters babbling on about how they were going to make this 'Hero" suffer, the man in the hood quickly threw the three knives at what he presumed the most threatening people in the room.

The Dracanae, one of the Empousa and the Hellhound all burst into golden dust, for the Gorgon and remaining Empousa to spin around looking for their attacker. After he had loosed all three knives, he stood up and started to walk calmly into the light, because he wanted answers.

The Gorgon's head snapped around to the figure intruding on them and snarled "Who are you?"

"Who am I? Fantastic question, but first, what are you doing?" The man replied calmly, letting his voice reach across the room and the fear of the unknown to sink into the monsters.

"You made a mistake coming here, we will tear you apart" the Empousa threatened, stalking towards him from one side of the room.

"I don't think so" the man replied, and before either of them could reply to him, he flicked a knife from the holster on the right side of his pants and at the she-devil, nailing her directly between the eyes.

As the Empousa turned to dust he focused his entire attention on the Gorgon, and flicked the switch on a metal box in his pocket, and the greek fire arrows in the room a few doors down ignited and incinerated all of the Hellhounds.

"Now that I have your complete attention, what are you doing here?" he said turning his face towards the Gorgon, who had taken a few steps backwards, in fear at this new threat in front of her that was undeniably extremely strong.

"We are hoping to kill the greatest threat to our plans, so we stole his sister from that demigod camp" she said with disgust plain on her face.

"The 'Hero of Olympus' yes, I don't care about that, why are more and more monsters amassing themselves?" the man in the hood said with a brief wave of his hand dismissing that plan as unimportant.

"You don't know?" she questioned quietly then started laughing manically, then it was cut off by a shriek as an throwing knife impaled her hand to the wall behind her.

"Do I look to be in a mood to hang around?" He said in a suddenly cold voice that made it feel like the room had dropped ten degrees.

"Tartarus, he wants the gods to know how much it hurts when your children are sent to him. We are to attack the camp, and without that brat Jackson they would be next to leaderless."

"Okay, thank you for your time" the man in the hood said, coming to an understanding of the monsters plan. With a tap on the wrist his bow folded out, and quickly drawing an arrow, he fired it across the room, and it landed dead centre between her eyes, and she crumbled to dust.

Quickly the man started to collect his spent weapons, collecting the knives, and the arrow from the wall, he then turned his attention to the small sobbing girl in the corner. Turning his bow back into the chunky bracelet, he carefully made his way towards her.

"Hi there, are you okay" he asked softly when he reached her. Her reaction was to curl up into a tighter ball and sob a little louder.

"It's okay, I'm not going to hurt you, and the monsters are all gone, look" he said gesturing around the room, and at the same time he made the shadows across his face retract a little, so that the bottom of his face was visible, and distinctly human.

The little girl slowly lifted her head, and was met with the sight of the man in black, crouched right in front of her. She made a quick study of the man, taking in all of his weapons, the suit that he wore, and the tiny amount of his face that was visible. Try as she might she couldn't get a clear view of his face, only his mouth and jaw here visible, with stubble covering the part of his face she could see.

With a quick scramble, the girl picked up the spear the Dracanae had dropped when she turned to dust, and levelled it at the stranger in front of her.

"Who are you?" She asked quietly, the spear in her hands shaking badly, and if the man had truly felt threatened, could've easily disarmed.

"Call me … Shadow" He said after a brief pause, his own study of the girl had taken less than a third of the time she had spent looking at him, from the green eyes, black hair and powerful aura, she was most certainly a daughter of Poseidon. He was once again glad for his suit, it muffled his aura, so even stood in front of a god they wouldn't be able to tell his demigod roots.

"What do you want with me .. Shadow" she said after a brief pause, because it was a strange name after all.

"I'm taking you home" he said "preferably before this whole building burns down" he indicated the wall on the far side of the room being slowly engulfed in greek fire.

"Can I trust you" she again asked in a small voice

"I will get you home, I promise no harm will come to you whilst you're with me, I swear it on the styx" The man told her to the backdrop of thunder.

"Okay" she said slowly lowering the spear

"What's your name?" The man asked her quietly taking the spear from her lax grip.

"Gemma" She said shyly

"Okay Gemma, I need you to trust me, can you do that?" Shadow asked her glancing to his escape route

"I-I think so" she stuttered

"Alright good, I need you to come here" he said as he moved quickly towards a window, whilst hooking a chair on the way. Without warning he catapulted the chair straight through the window, Gemma took a step back from him in surprise.

Leaning slightly out of the broken window, Shadow fired another of the arrows with the steel cables in to the hard stone lining the roof, once satisfied it could hold his weight, he turned his attention back to Gemma.

"Okay Gemma, I need you to come to me" He said to the girl who looked like she realised what he was about to do.

"Can't we just use the stairs?" She asked hesitantly

"I think we might get a little hot and bothered going that way" He said with a smirk plainly displayed on his lips, gesturing to the door that was now on fire.

"Okay.." Gemma said slowly, making her way to the mysterious man

Grabbing her quickly around the waist, Shadow leapt from the building, falling quite fast until the cable slowed the descent and placed them nicely on the sidewalk. After letting the cable snap off from the bow handle, Shadow turned his attention to the girl in his arms, she looked green, like seriously green.

"You okay Gemma?" He asked, trying to stifle a chuckle

"That was horrible" She groaned

"It's only a few blocks until we get to our mode of transport, can you walk?" Shadow questioned

With a nod, he gently lowered the young girl to the ground. After a few steps, her legs gave out under her, so Shadow against her weak protests, picked her up again after dispelling his bow, and carried her to his motorcycle.

On the way, Gemma obviously got over her fear of him, which was a shame, because she soon started to bombard him with questions, that he answered as briefly as he could, but tried not to lie to the little girl.

"Why can't I see your face?" She asked suddenly, in her game of fifty questions, she had already asked his favourite colour, his weapon preference and why he was in the building she was held captive in.

"Because … Ahh here we are" just then, they came up to his motorcycle, unlike Ares' bike, his was made for speed, quite unlike biker gangs, you had to lean forwards instead of backwards. Taking the helmet off the handle bars, he passed it to the small girl who he had just placed on the ground.

"No, I will look silly" Gemma complained, refusing the helmet

"Nobody will see you, and this way if you fall off you won't hurt yourself as badly" Shadow reasoned

"Fine, but don't tell anyone at Camp about this" Gemma warned

"Wouldn't dream of it" Shadow chuckled, swinging his leg over the saddle, twisting the key in the ignition, and hearing the engine roar to life. He bent down to the side, and lifted Gemma so that she was placed in front of him, where he could keep an eye on her, kicking the stand up, he gunned the engine, and they shot off towards Camp Half-Blood.

When they arrived, thanks to the enchantments on his suit, the hood hadn't fallen down, and a really enthusiastic Gemma seemed reluctant to get off the bike, at first she had been terrified of the speeds Shadow had been riding as he weaved through the traffic, but once she relaxed she found it exhilarating.

Once he finally coaxed Gemma off the bike, she put the helmet back on the saddle, and patted her hair flat.

"Go on, it's just over that hill" Shadow told her, gently pushing her in the direction of the camp

"Aren't you coming?" she questioned suddenly

"No" he replied bluntly

"Oh, will I ever see you again?" she asked, sensing that the reason why he wasn't going in was a sore subject.

"Maybe Gemma, maybe" he said as a sigh

Greatly surprising him, Gemma hugged him around the waist, with her only being a young girl, and him being at least 6'3 this was the best she could manage.

"Thank you" she muttered whilst Shadow still stunned, just gently patted back. Once she pulled away, Shadow stood there, feeling like he should say something.

"Look after yourself, I'll wait until you're inside safely" he said gently pushing her towards the barrier again.

Getting the message, Gemma quickly climbed up the hill, looking back a few times to see Shadow leaning against the motorcycle with his arms crossed watching to make sure she got up alright. Once at the crest, she turned again, but Shadow and his bike had vanished.


	2. Chapter 2

A/N Thank you guys so much, it's my first story on the site, and the reviews and messages have all been positive, and for that I can't thank you enough. If you have any problems with it, please feel free to drop me a message, and I will do my best to change it, also if you have any ideas or something that you want to see happen, I will also try to include that. I'm thinking about giving our main character a romance, if any of you have any ideas about that, I will take all of them into consideration, but even I'm not sure.

This chapter is a bit shorter than the last one, it sort of gives a back story to the mysterious 'Shadow' and we find out his name..

I hope you all enjoy it.

...

Shadow pulled up outside the abandoned school in Brooklyn that he had made his home, well when he says school, he actually means the dark basement underneath.

Walking through the gates, he couldn't believe that such a nice building had been left to rot, the front of the building was spectacular, and very Greek now that he came to think about it, with columns topped with an archway, that just screamed of the Ancient Greek culture, maybe that was why he was drawn to this place.

During his musing, his feet automatically took him to his place in the building, once through the heavy metal door of the basement, he shook his head, and cleared his thoughts. He had a tent set up on the floor, in one of the corners where the least amount of light shone, due to his nocturnal activities, he had made it a habit of sleeping during the day, and sunlight only hindered this.

His tent was apparently similar to that of a Hunter of Artemis, meaning it was bigger on the inside, and when moving, it flattened out into a backpack for easy travelling. His favourite thing about that, was that when flattened, you could shake the bag as much as you wanted, but when you put the tent back up, everything was where it should be, it was like everything was glued down when in its backpack form.

Walking into his tent, he slowly took off his quiver, laying it on the desk, then proceeded to empty his pockets. Soon enough, his quiver newly refilled with arrows lay on the desk, along with his metal bracelet, hunting knives, throwing knives and lastly a retractable police truncheon. Looking at his array of weapons, he really wished he had a sword to complete the set, he had multiple swords, including a Bronze Xiphos, a Gold Gladius and a Sabre made from a mortal metal. Gods he really hated that Sabre, it was long and unbalanced, and ugly. But he was trained with it none the less, he was with all of the weapons in his now rather extensive armoury.

There were spears, shields Hades, there was even a baseball bat or two, but what he didn't have that irked him to no end, was a sword that he could carry with him when he went out. He always thought this when taking off his jacket and shirt, there were a myriad of scars covering his body, many of which could've been avoided had a sword been with him.

Laying his jacket on the bed and kicking off his boots, he grabbed a towel and made his way to the bathroom, once inside he made a quick inspection of his body, there was a scar of four claw marks over the right side of his chest, his left side hadn't come out unscathed either, with multiple arrow and stab wounds marring the flesh, turning it white instead of the lightly tanned his skin was normally. Further down his body, there was long slash, right down the side of his abdomen, and a few nicks covering his abdominal muscles.

Finishing his inspection, he turned and looked at his back, again there were multiple scars from different weapons, but he was looking at the most recent, the one with stitches till in, that he had received when a monster had gone down, and he believed it to be incapacitated, however it had skewered him when his back was turned. Luckily for him, he had got damaged the creature to the point that its aim was off, and it had only managed to slice through his side, and not directly through his back, to his 'important' organs.

He wasn't vain, but could appreciate all of the training he had done, had given him the body of a God, all of his muscles were twice the size of when he had started his crusade, from the washboard abs, to the t-shirt bulging biceps, however he wasn't too muscled, and he appreciated that. From the times he had watched TV, he had seen body builders, and muscle like that would help in a fight, no, he was built for speed.

He turned on the shower, and after flinging his pants and boxers into his room, he stepped under the steaming water, and finally began to relax. Absentmindedly rubbing his tattoos, which were located in various places, a triskelion was inked onto his right shoulder blade, a Greek helmet was on his left pectoral and the SPQR tattoo was burned onto his right forearm.

Sighing whilst rubbing the triskelion, he had only the fates to thank for the predicament he was in now, four years ago, he had awoken in the river Lethe, with no memory of who he was or why he was there. The only thing he could remember was that he was a demigod, and when he got into his first fight, he also knew how to handle himself. Very well.

Stepping out of the shower after washing himself, he dried quickly and wrapped the towel around his waist, walking into his room/eating/armoury/ well everything that wasn't the bathroom really. He supposed that the Hunters of Artemis had separate tents for all of their different things, he didn't really care, the clutter was soothing for him.

Upon entrance to the room, he wasn't surprised to find his 'mothers' in there.

"You knew there was a girl there, and that I would have to take her back to camp didn't you" He accused, without even bothering to say hello.

"Yes" Clotho replied calmly

"Her brother was coming for her you know, why'd you send me?" He asked

"Because you were the only one able to do it without getting the child killed" Atropos said matter of factly.

"Great" Shadow sighed "I assume that there was another reason?"

"They need to know you're not a threat to them, you will have to leave the shadows and come into the light soon enough" Lachesis replied

"You said the same thing last year, and the year before" Shadow complained "I don't even know my name!"

"It can be anything you want, nobody will remember who you were. Only what you will become" Lachesis said

"And what's that" he grumbled

"The second greatest Hero of this age" Atropos told him

"Only the second?" he questioned with a small smile

"Yes, the God's look to Perseus Jackson as the greatest Hero" Clotho said with a sigh

"I've heard bits here and there about him, he does sound worthy of that title" Shadow said looking at his hands

"He has truly done the impossible" Atropos said

"But you can go further, redefine the meaning of the word 'Hero', you can follow in the footsteps of Hercules and Dionysus " Lachesis continued

"Followings not really my style" Shadow deadpanned

The three old ladies chuckled "We know, it took us so long for you to do what you were told" Clotho said through her laugh.

"Well getting stalked and then told 'you're fated to save the world' by three old ladies is pretty creepy" Shadow said laughing with the women.

"Are we creepy?" asked Atropos pouting

"Well you are now yeah" Shadow laughed

With a bright flash of light that made Shadow turn his head and shield his eyes, when he turned back the three extremely old ladies were gone, and in their place were three women around twenty five, with the same silver hair however.

"And now?" Clotho queried, fluttering her eyelashes

"You know I look at you as parents, that is just freakin' weird." Shadow said turning back towards the bathroom, and picking up a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt.

"Make yourselves at home, and I will put dinner on when I get out" he said over his shoulder, before closing the bathroom door.

Once he reemerged, all three of the fates were sat around his table, and on it was a wonderful spread of food, steaks, french fries, anything that could get a young mans blood pumping. Being around 18 or 19, Shadow couldn't know for sure, it was slightly strange to be sat around a table with 3 semi attractive young(ish) women, but view them as parental figures. However the weirdness had sort of rubbed off now, because they were the equivalent of Goddesses, and these were the forms that they had a preference to whenever they would train him, surprisingly Shadow had learnt that although their weapons of choice were cudgels, they were extremely, and he meant extremely proficient with all types of weaponry.

Taking his seat Shadow looked around at the women, and when they looked at him expectantly, he grinned sheepishly and tipped some of his meal into the brassiere at the centre of the table, and muttered a prayer to the fates.

"Thank you" Atropos said

"We think it is time for you to know at least a portion of your story" Lachesis said

This caused Shadow to stop eating and lean forward in anticipation, for he had never heard of anything about his life before the Lethe, and could remember nothing either. From the tattoos, he guessed he knew both the Romans and the Greeks, and the Triskelion was the sign for the Fates, this he had added once he woke up, so if he forgot everything he knew the Fates would help him.

Clotho was the first to speak, seeing the boy's, or man's, she thought whilst looking at him, excitement "Your Mother was Elpis"

"Elpis? That's not possible, she has been locked in the Pithos for .. God's know how long" Shadow said leaning back in his chair, believing the Fates to be wrong.

"Yes she has" Atropos replied

"And we have looked after you for millennia, keeping your body safe, but not ageing, until your services were needed" Lachesis finished

"Alright, you've had your joke, seriously do you not know who my parents are" Shadow said, slightly amused at the complexity of their tale.

"We are not joking" Lachesis said

"Then why did I wake up in the Lethe?" Shadow questioned, still unbelieving

"Because of what your original purpose was" Clotho replied simply

"What was it?" he whispered, slowly coming to realise, that this was true.

"You were originally meant to become apart of the same Pithos as your Mother, as punishment for being born, however she managed to smuggle you to us in secret before the Titans could catch her" Clotho replied slowly gauging his reaction.

"She saved me…" He muttered to himself "Then why wash away my memories?" He questioned further

"Because you were hell bent on releasing her, you even joined both of the camps in an attempt to get them to follow you" Atropos said quietly

"That explains the tattoos I guess, but why would I have done that, I would likely got them all killed, as well as releasing hope" Shadow mused

"Because you were overcome by grief, child" Clotho said in an attempt to sooth him

"Thank you, all of you, for all that you have done for me" Shadow said, taking time to look at the women surrounding his table.

"It has truly been our pleasure Η ελιά" Lachesis said

"Olive tree?" Shadow questioned

"Yes, nowadays you would be known as 'Oliver' I believe" Clotho explained

"Oliver" Shadow muttered to himself "Thank you, I feel whole again" he said once again looking up at his surrogate parents.

"We're not done yet Oliver" Lachesis said to him, whilst threw a small metal bar at him

Oliver's hand snapped up and caught it, spinning the bar in his hand, and examining it. It was a cylindrical bar of metal, the exact size of his hand, and once he had spun it, he found one way felt right in his hand, and as soon as he had found this, the bar sprung into life, a Celestial Bronze Xiphos now held in his hand.

"How did you know?" Oliver asked, spinning the sword in his right hand, marvelling at the weight and the length, it was like the sword had been made specifically for him.

"It was you know" Clotho said

"Will you stop doing that!" Oliver exclaimed "It's not only freaky, it's rude!"

"We cant help it if we can read your mind" Lachesis told him

"I'm not getting into another argument about this" Oliver said bluntly, focusing on the sword in his hand, and watching it shrink back to the metal bar. What happened next surprised him slightly, accompanied with a small glow, the bar changed into a small pocket flashlight, and much to his pleasure. It was black.

"I assume you came here with another … 'Assignment'" Oliver said, pocketing the flashlight, and turning his attention back to the fates.

"Yes, there is a massive monster incursion in the Smoky Mountains" Atropos informed him

"You're kidding me right?" Oliver said, brow furrowing as he thought about the National Park in Tennessee, he had just managed to get to a nice city, with fast food on every corner, and now he had to head back into the wilderness.

"Unfortunately no, we know that there is at least one powerful being there, drawing all the monsters nearby straight to them" Clotho warned

"Wonderful, anything I should know before I head off, my impending death perhaps?" He questioned, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

"You know we cannot tell you that" The three Fates said together

"Figured" Oliver muttered "Can I at least have money for gas?"

"Of course, you will need something else as well" Atropos told him

With a have of their hands, a small bag appeared on the table, looking inside, he found some non perishable food, a stack of bills and lastly a large coin with a Triskelion emblazoned on it. Picking up the strange coin, he looked at it curiously.

"That as you well know is the symbol of the Fates, you're going to need that before the week is through" Lachesis warned him

"Thanks, I guess" Oliver said with a quizzical look on his face, but he was used to his adoptive parents speaking in riddles.

"Start on your way tomorrow" Clotho told him "And we will see you very soon" With a wave of their hands, the dirty plates and food vanished from the table, as Oliver had finished eating quite a while ago.

"Thank you Mothers, or should I say Aunts?" Oliver said with a smile

"Ahh so you remember that much about your Mythology, Goodnight and Goodbye Nephew" Atropos said, then they clasped hands, Oliver knew what that meant, and turned his head so they could flash away.

Stowing the backpack in the kitchen area, he went and collapsed into his bed, whilst laying there, he though about the best way to get to Tennessee, and with a groan realised he'd probably have to get a train. His last thought before his eyes slowly closed was that he'd have to shorten his name, Oliver felt a bit too long for him.


	3. Chapter 3

Oliver straddled his motorcycle for what would hopefully be the last leg in the trip to 'The Great Smoky Mountains'. He had a relatively uneventful journey, boarding a few trains, and with slight mist manipulation, he had managed to get his bike all the way with him, and other than the odd altercation with a monster, or even a mortal that he had found trying to beat on his son, long story short they all regretted it, although the mortal wasn't in Tartarus. Yet.

Quickly checking his pockets to make sure he had everything, he gunned the engine, and flicked his visor down. Whilst he was riding, he thought about what he could encounter at the National Park. Gods he hoped it wasn't a Titan, they were worse than the Gods themselves, extremely cocky, and extremely hard to beat, his previous encounter with a Titan, he had barely escaped with his life, nearly getting turned to dust by Menoetius, although it had been years, he was waiting for the rematch.

He travelled all the way to the Park with no resistance, though this was probably due to his clothes, and not lack of monsters, if what the Fates had told him was true. Pulling up in a parking lot, that met the edge of the forest, and the start of the park, he jumped off his motorcycle, and jumped around clapping his hands, trying to get the blood back into his extremities, and fight off the cramp he could feel.

The instant he had pulled up at the park, he knew this was going to be a tough camping trip, he could sense the aura that the monsters were throwing off, and there was a lot of it, but thankfully none near him, for the time being at least. Making a snap decision, he decided to go to a mortal campsite, instead of just pitching his tent in the forest, this way he could blend in, and not alert anything to his presence.

Making his way down the half mile trail leading to the camp, he half expected something to jump out at him, but made it to there with only some mud on his boots. Finding an unobtrusive spot to put his tent, hopefully far enough away from the mortals that they wouldn't disturb him during the day, he pulled the tab, and watched his tent suddenly balloon out, and attached the pegs to the ground. Walking inside, he followed his usual ritual, stripping off the few weapons he had on him, his quiver had stayed inside the tent, so his backpack could go on. With the tent flap zipped up, he could take off his suit, the tent itself now acting to dampen his aura and scent, so nothing would know he was there.

Relaxing into his bed, he thought of what tomorrow night was going to bring, probably pain, and death. And lots of golden dust.

…

The next evening after pulling on his suit, Oliver sat at his desk, looking at the array of weapons in front of him. He decided to leave nothing to chance, taking out some extra regular arrows from his quiver, and replacing them with ones tipped with the Greek Fire head. After this was complete, he filled his holsters with throwing knives, put the extra hunting knives in their sheathes on the side of his quiver, slipped the quiver over his head, and finally attached the bracelet to his wrist. Ready to walk out of his tent, he paused remembering his newest weapon, and flipped it up from the table, letting it spin in the air a few times, then slipped it into his pocket. Finally ready, he walked out of his tent, ready to face any hell that came his way.

…

He had been hunting a group of Hellhounds for over an hour, luckily they weren't very stealthy, as he had found their tracks only a few meters into the forest, however one thing they were is fast, Oliver was struggling to keep up. Up ahead completely oblivious to the man hunting them, the monsters looked like they had stopped for a breather, and weren't even checking their surroundings, believing there to be no threat, so they missed the man, who, once he stepped into the shadow of a tree, seemed to all but disappear.

Oliver had decided to follow the Hellhounds to their master, rather than risk killing them, and not finding the amassing army, as well as not standing the chance of alerting them to his presence. Whilst the Hellhounds started to drink from the river, he considered how precarious his situation was, he would have to make sure the army was completely decimated, or there was no way he would make it out alive.

When the Hellhounds started to move off again, Oliver started to follow them more carefully, taking no chances. Soon enough he could see a clearing ahead, and the aura cast off by monsters became overpowering, so instead of following the running Hounds, he looked up, once he found an acceptable 'perch' in a tree, he leapt up, swinging into place, and what he saw made his blood run cold.

In the field in front of him was most certainly an army, at least 200 monsters strong, ranging from tiny Hellhounds, to towering Laistrygonian Giants. This was not going to be an easy fix. Gently settling himself into the tree, he started to look around the enemy camp, for anything that might help him. After long, he came up with next to nothing, there was a propane tank attached to a cabin in the middle of the army, there was a river going around the other side of the camp, and there was a pickup truck with a few spare jerry cans in the back.

Coming to the conclusion that his best chance would be fighting during the day, the monsters would be weaker then, but his powers would be severely diminished too, or his suits powers, although he was a demigod, he had picked up nothing from his mother, other than to make people hopeful, a completely useless skill in this situation. Hoping that he was right about waking until daybreak, he begun to settle down against the trunk of the tree.

He was just beginning to drift off, when realisation struck him, if he could cover the armies tents in the gasoline from the truck, he would have next to no trouble. Leaping from the branch, he looked at the sky, he had around two hours of darkness left, two hours where his plan could actually work.

Quickly attempting to work his way over to the truck, he was lucky that he wasn't the only one that was beginning to slumber, a majority of the monsters had already retired to their tents, or even the ground in some cases, thanking his lucky stars, Oliver got to the truck, without alerting anything. He quickly tugged the jerry cans out from the back of the truck, and twisting off the cap, and sniffing the contents to confirm his suspicions, he was greeted with the smell of Gasoline.

Making sure to not waste any time, he moved quickly dowsing the enemy tents in the highly flammable liquid, he covered as many of the tents he could, and once the last can was empty, quietly crept to his previous perch, and admired his handiwork, the majority of the monsters tents all had at least a small amount of gasoline on them, meaning that if any Greek Fire touched it, the green flames would destroy the enemy camp.

Quickly making his bow appear, he looked back up to the sky, and confirming his suspicions, the pinkness of dawn was beginning to appear on the horizon. Pulling out an explosive arrow, he aimed at the mass of tents, and let loose.

The aftermath of the explosion was almost instantaneous, because of the gasoline, the Greek Fire spread throughout the monsters encampment, engulfing everything, most of the monsters didn't even know what had hit them, before they exploded into clouds of dust amongst the flames. The pitiful moaning and screams of the dying were enough however, to get some of the monsters out of their stupor, and away from the tents, before they too went up in flames.

With the monsters mostly encircled by flames, and looking around wildly, it was quite easy for Oliver to pick a majority of them off from his position overlooking the clearing, however when the flames started to die down, and Scythian Dracaena having located his position in the trees were also sending arrows in his direction, he jumped down, landing with a role, and started to run at the monsters, firing arrows as he went.

With a group of around 20 monsters left, surrounded by soldering tents, Oliver changed his bow back into its concealed form, and brought out his newest weapons, quickly clicking the button on the bottom of the flashlight, whilst the Xiphos expanded, he reached over his shoulder with his left hand, and retrieved one of the hunting knives that resided there.

The first monsters that Oliver made it too were two cyclops that both swung clubs at him, forcing him to twist sideways, and in-between their weapons, narrowly avoiding them. Oliver proceeded to stab one of the cyclops in the leg with his knife, and stabbed the other in the side of the neck with his Celestial Bronze sword, before whipping it around to counter a flailing strike by the other Cyclops' club, retracting the knife and then slashed the monsters throat, turning his back on his when it exploded into dust.

When he had finished with the remaining monsters, he looked around the now destroyed camp, nothing left but soldering tents, and golden dust. Oliver sighed and looked himself over, other than a few tears in his outfit, and the blood from the resulting wounds he had come out unscathed, when he got back to his tent, there wouldn't be any scars from the cuts after he had taken some ambrosia and nectar. Once he had retrieved any salvageable weapons, he slowly made his way back to his camp, counting himself lucky that any of the giants had been to slow to avoid the greek fire, or his wounds could have been substantially worse.

…

Artemis stood and looked out over a clearing in outrage, she had brought all of the Hunt, consisting of 26 girls, ranging from 15 to 19, over the last few months she had heard of gathering monsters, and dealing with a few camps, the Hunt had done as it always had, eradicated them. However more often than not, when they had got to the place where she had heard rumours of monsters amassing themselves, there was nothing there but golden dust.

The same had happened here in the Smoky Mountains, a burnt out camp covered in golden dust, but nothing to suggest who or what had killed such a sizeable encampment. Due to this she was furious, whoever this was, was making her and the Hunt look bad, and never in her two millennia had she allowed herself to be outdone by anyone, it was getting to the point that she was going to have to find out at the next council meeting, who this new team was, and where she should take her complaints.

Whilst she was internally debating what her next move should be, her Lieutenant, Thalia Grace came up to her.

"Sorry Milady, the camp is all clear, but we have found one monster alive" Thalia reported

"Where? Take me to it" Artemis demanded, finally she might have some answers.

Walking with Thalia a short distance into the forest on the far side of the clearing, they found the rest of the Hunt, surrounding a figure on the ground, when Artemis had a clear line of sight, it was obvious that the monster had once been an Empousa was lying propped against a tree, her donkey leg and the entire left side of her body extremely burned, turning her once attractive image into something wholly repulsive.

"Who did this?" Artemis asked, walking over and kneeling in front of the damaged monster

"Why should I tell you anything?" The Empousa spat at the Goddess, which would have sounded defiant if not for the rasping and wheezing sound the she monster was currently making.

"Because I will hurt you if you don't" Artemis said simply, pulling a knife from the sheath on her waist.

"You think anything you do will compare to what that Demon did to me" The Empousa spat

"What Demon" Artemis asked, lowering her blade slightly, as she got her first lead on this mysterious entity.

"If I didn't know better I would say it was Nyx herself, black as night, in a hood, like Thanatos himself had come for us" The Empousa coughed "Fought like nothing I'd ever seen"

"What else can you tell me about them?" Artemis questioned, intrigued

"Them? There was one man, if that thing was even a man" The Empousa smiled "The Olympians don't know? Maybe your Hero has slipped the leash"

"One man.." Artemis muttered "Where did he go?" she questioned, but it was already too late, the Empousa was slowly crumbling to dust.

"Dammit!" Artemis screamed, the council were going to have to know about this, they had come to know first hand what one rogue Demigod could do on their own, she wasn't about to let that happen again on her watch.

"Thalia, get the camp set up, Olympus needs to know about this new player" Artemis said, turning to Thalia

"Yes Milady, do we have any idea about who he could be?" Thalia questioned

"No, I won't be long, make sure you set up a watch, something drew those monsters here, and maybe our 'Demon' will come back" Artemis said, slightly sneering when she mentioned this mysterious entity that had avoided her and the hunt, even the Gods for who knows how long.

After moving a safe distance from the Hunt, Artemis flashed herself to the throne room on Olympus, raising her bow into the air, she shot an arrow far into the heavens, and once it exploded, it made a sound that all of the Olympians would hear, regardless of where they were.

It took a few minutes for all of the Olympians to flash into their respective thrones, a few of them in varying different states, Dionysus in his usual bad mood, but surprisingly still looking a bit tipsy, Apollo came in sporting his trademark bright white smile, Aphrodite, checking herself out in the mirror.

Artemis stopped her inspection of her fellow council members when Zeus her father, finally flashed in, with Hera at his side.

"Artemis, the winter solstice meeting is only in a few months, what was so urgent that it couldn't wait until then?" Zeus asked in a rather calm, but still demanding tone.

"There is a new player on the board Father, are you aware of the large monster encampment that was in the Smoky Mountains?" Artemis asked, hoping that she wouldn't have to supply a backstory for the whole council.

"Yes, we are aware, you were sent to destroy it if I'm not mistaken?" Zeus answered, slightly perplexed, shown by the slight frown that had appeared on his face.

"Yes Father, except, well when we got there it was already destroyed" Artemis said

"Were they covering their tracks?" Poseidon questioned, leaning forward like most of the council, as this intrigued all of them.

"No, according to the only surviving member of that camp, a man did it.. Alone" Artemis said, her voice becoming quieter towards the end of the revelation.

"A man did it alone?! You said you needed all of your Hunt to deal with an infestation that big, and a single guy beat you too it?!" Apollo started to laugh

"Do you know who this man is Artemis?" Zeus said, cutting across Apollo's laughter.

"No Father, I'm sorry he had already gone by the time that we got there, I think that its the same person that has been destroying monster camps in the past, the ones that the Hunt have gone to and found nothing left" Artemis explained, a frown now adorning her features too.

"Well if he's destroying monsters, he's on our side right?" Hermes asked, hoping for the best scenario.

"He could be" Poseidon mused quietly

"Are we sure it's not one of our own?" Hades asked, he was usually quiet in the council meetings, not used to being a part of the council again yet.

"Yes, nobody has that amount of raw power and talent, and I believe the only person that does is still in camp, correct Poseidon?" Hestia asked her brother

"Yes Sister, Percy has been at Camp Half-Blood for a few months now, whilst he and Annabeth get things prepared for New Rome" Poseidon answered, sure that his son was not this Vigilante

"Nevertheless, this individual sound too dangerous to be left to his own devices, Artemis I want you to bring him in front of this council, alive preferably" Zeus decreed

"Thank you Father, I will get it done" Artemis said, and with a small bow to her fellow council members, she flashed back to the Hunt.

...

After striding the short distance back to the Hunters camp, she called all of her girls outside and told them the news all together.

"Girls, we are going to stop hunting monsters for now, our new prey, is the man that was here today, you all heard a description of him, dressed all in black, and will almost certainly be targeting another monster camp" Artemis said, addressing all of the Hunters, and said it in such a way that made them sure that they wouldn't fail to locate this illusive 'Demon'.


End file.
